Not going to dispute that point, however the reason given for removing the winter payments (Costing £1.8 billion I believe) was to " Save the economy".
It would be more morally right to not fleece pensioners in our own country, while sending 6 times that amount overseas.
Boring? Starmer is digging enough holes for himself, doesn’t need our help.
Come on then, cards on the table. Who would you have as PM out of all current acting mp’s? Any one of them, your choice.
You can bang on about your pefectly valid dislike of Starmer. Thats fine but you’re not allowed to play the typical populist BS by not giving a valid alternative.
I’ve just been having a look through Starmer’s Register of Interests to see what potential conflicts of interests he has:
https://members.parliament.uk/member/4514/registeredinterests
There are various odd things related to him being a barrister.
One of the big ones is Lord Waheed Alli who is a Labour lord. Looking through his bio, his main concern has been LGBT rights. He is also involved in the media, particularly radio and some independent productions for Channel 4. That could be an interest in terms of broadcasting, Ofcom and the BBC license renewal. Given that he is a long standing active Labour party member it is more likely that their interests are aligned rather than conflicted, particularly as both are concerned with human rights legislation.
There are a huge number related to him being a football fan. Not all of these were necessarily donated by the football clubs themselves. Now, I can’t see that he would be conflicted by Arsenal as he is an Arsenal fan already. As for the others? I’m assuming that they would want his ear in terms of a potential football regulator.
The National Theatre have donated tickets which I presume is to promote a play about Nye Bevan.
There was one which seems to be related to a van rental entrepreneur called Rod Lloyd. He seems to have backed him during his leadership race. I can’t think of anything obvious there unless they were legislating on something affecting the van rental business.
The one that does bother me is a huge amount paid to visit COP28 by Qatar and UAE. Their aims clearly aren’t aligned with those of COP. I can see that attending the summit is clearly job related but the donation does stand out as a clear conflict or, at least, an obvious attempt to influence.
Thanks for doing the legwork, but as we can see, it’s all about the vibes and the look, but less about the substance.
I’m no less guilty of that either. The problem is that there will always be that equivalence drawn, rightly or not, between his actions now and his words about the Conservative corruption.
That sounds like Gordon Brown’s golden rule. Basic Keynesian Economics.
Well that is the kind of false equivalence that they are looking for. The whole point of the register of interests is that these are out in the open and you can see whether donations are made in good faith or not.
I don’t think Waheed Alli is doing anything other than helping out public figures whose interests align with his own. It’s a good faith payment in that he is merely supporting their already stated aims. The Qatar/UAE thing bothers me as I don’t regard either entity in acting in good faith over this. They are looking to buy influence.
Not to mention what crossed his grubby palms by conveniently letting Al Fayed slip through the system
Absolutely. He was brought in to the Lords by Blair to help with plans to refresh the house and for the party to reach out to the younger voters (Lord Alli was one of the people behind Planet 24). I would expect given Starmer’s announcements around changes to the Lords, Lord Alli is involved in that (hence his being given a pass to No.10 etc).
CPS apparently never received the evidence required to allow them to get involved, so he wouldn’t have been involved.
CPS did not prosecute Mohamed Al Fayed twice despite police evidence | ITV News
But but but Starmer bad!
It’s honestly quite annoying to have to defend someone I don’t even like just because the slurs are factually inaccurate.
BBC reporting Nurses Unions have rejected 5.5% pay increase offer.
I wonder how well this is going to go for them considering the look when most of the other unions have accepted their pay offers…
Yes. I can’t see the Government going any higher now though given the picture it is painting regarding public finances.
This article is quite thin on what their demands are, or whether the union recommended voting a particular way.
The particular screenshot here does suggest that it’s about working conditions more than the pay:
The BBC article isn’t much better.
Reading between the lines though, the statement mentioned that they saw a pay cut of 25% in real terms between 2010 and 2024, so it’s insufficient, but they also mention staffing numbers.
Again, they may have a point, but considering how stingy the government is being with so many other things, not sure they will get a concession on pay. On staffing numbers, it’s probably going to be a part of plans already (I’d hope so at least).
The two things are related. I think the overall level for nursing is about a 10% shortfall of staff (actually, 10% below what management thinks they need, let alone the staff).
The shortfall is made up by agency nurses which are much more expensive. Nurses leaving the NHS can usually be better paid and have more control over their hours as an agency nurse.
Being an NHS nurse does has advantages in terms of sick pay, holiday pay, training, pensions and career progression as well as job security.
I’m guessing that there are things that they could offer that would help nurses financially and improve retention. Possibly, paying and writing off student nurse debt for each year worked?
I assumed it was because of the 25% they wanted to see reversing. I’m not sure whether a pay deal would be the appropriate place for the other staffing issues to be resolved - especially so early into a new government’s term when it has to resolve a whole number of other issues
How does the higher pay contrast with the foregone pension they would otherwise accrue if they were staff?
